


Agony

by Codradin



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ? - Freeform, Angst and Fluff and Smut, M/M, Natemare is a mess, Natemare is also the embodiment of Agony, Self-Hatred, Succubi & Incubi, Suicidal Thoughts, and he hates it, more when i finish the damn thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29696769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codradin/pseuds/Codradin
Summary: Natemare doesn't like people. As the literal Embodiment of Agony, he just tends to hermit. People are loud, their minds always screaming.The first fully quiet man Nate's ever met takes an interest in him regardless, it seems.
Relationships: Phantom (Natewantstobattle)/Natemare
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not gonna lie i didn't beta this, i just straight up wrote it on the site. Have fun, I guess. Maybe I'll actually finish this one.

Natemare didn't like people much.

  
At least, he's pretty sure he didn't. It was hard to tell sometimes.

The complicated thing about Natemare, unfortunately, was that he was the Embodiment of Agony: he was constantly in mind-breaking, insanity-inducing pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had control of the pain to a degree-he could affect others with it in a radius, if he really wanted, and could choose what kind of pain it was-stabbing, cold, fire. 

He...didn't like hurting people much, though, so he kept his aura within his own skin. It made the pain for himself worse, yes, but he preferred it over hurting people just trying to live their lives. His wretched existence wasn't their fault, they didn't deserve the pain.

The both fortunate and unfortunate thing, though, was that he needed to feed on others pain in order to strengthen his aura, so if he went a long time without doing that, he regained his senses some.

But that led to the awkward dilemma of having almost split personalities, fractured memories, and suffocating cycles of self-hatred that drove him back into his own auras grasp in order to stop thinking for a bit.

Long story short: He didn't like people when he was insane, and people didn't like him.

So it was _beyond_ him why the _hell_ he was in the back of a shitty bar in the middle of some fucking city he didn't remember the goddamn name of.   
  
He growled softly to himself, leaning back against a wall as best he could, glaring at the other people silently as he sipped a drink of something that tasted godawful, but at this point he was numb to everything that wasn't the pain. It was too loud, both externally and internally, all of the peoples minds screaming just as loudly as the people themselves, cheering and dancing like some great victory had been achieved.  
  
Nate huffed quietly, body shuddering and jerking sporadically like he was in his death throes, but unfortunately still very much alive; completely unable to die, actually.  
  
It sucked.  
  
He looked up when someone approached him, about to bear needle-like teeth at them and tell them to piss off when he hesitated for a moment.  
  
  
  
This man was different.  
  
His mind was quiet. Everything about him was quiet.  
  
He had ebony hair and deep cobalt eyes, a warm, pleasant smile playing across his face as he approached the sulking man fearlessly.  
  
Nate let his eyes wander a little, curious now as the man moved to lean against the wall next to him.  
  
They wore...a suit? Who the hell wears a suit to a bar? It was...nice. Expensive looking. A deep red dress shirt covered by a black vest and tie with matching black dress pants, white gloves covering his hands.  
  
Nate looked back up at the mans face, studying him curiously as best he could with the insanity clouding his mind and twitching his body like a broken marionet.   
  
"Hello." The stranger hummed, voice low and melodious.  
  
Nate tilted his head. Ah, that was a new feeling, a strange tug in his chest and a warmth in his neck.  
  
"...hi." He responded after a moment. Despite the pain, he'd found a way after all these years to stabilize his voice so it didn't crack and shake wildly unless he was distressed. It sounded almost normal.  
  
The stranger smiled, a charming thing-charming? Since when did Nate use that word? Alright. Sure.  
  
"You seem rather intent on avoiding the party." He said, voice low and sweet-not judging, surprisingly, just observing.  
  
Nate made a slight face at the crowd, scowling for a moment, accidentally flashing his needle teeth in the process-not that he was aware either way.  
  
"Tch. You could say that. So damn loud out there."  
  
The stranger chuckled softly.  
  
"You could say that. Perhaps we should go somewhere quieter to talk?"  
  
Nate raised an eyebrow at that, turning his gaze back to the crimson man.   
  
"And where would that be?" Good luck kidnapping him. That would work out terribly for this man, no matter how calm and sturdy he seemed.  
  
Crimson jerked his head back towards a doorway that lead to a side room, away from the noise.  
  
"Just over there."  
  
Nate cocked an eyebrow, pushing off the wall only for a seize of pain to grip him, sending him stumbling with a rough hiss through sharpened teeth.  
  
Crimson startled, moving to catch him before hissing himself as he touched the man despite Nate's best attempts to throw himself blindly away from him, jerking his hands back like he'd been burnt as Nate fell to a knee a little ways away.  
  
Crimson gripped his own wrist roughly, running a gloved thumb over the palm he'd touched Nate with, huffing quietly. Despite that, his gaze was locked on Nate.  
  
"..."  
  
Nate looked back up at him with dark, royal purple eyes, swirling with strange runic patterns.  
  
"...well. That was new." Crimson said, flexing his hand before folding it behind him. "What causes it?"  
  
Nate blinked.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The-" He gestured at him.   
  
Nate raised an eyebrow, expression flat.  
  
"The pain? My existence." He heaved himself to his feet unsteadily, growling now, taking a dangerous, unstable step towards Crimson.  
  
Crimson didn't flinch, dropping his hands back to his sides, unafraid of the shuddering Embodiment.  
  
...that was new, considering Nate's razor teeth were inches from his face, vicious and deadly, tar rising in his eyes, beginning to trail down Nate's cheek, marking the pale skin there.  
  
Instead, Crimson just hummed, offering another smile.  
  
"I think this is a conversation we should have elsewhere." He turned on his heel, walking back to the doorway that lead away from the noise.  
  
Nate scowled, following Crimson after a moment with shaking, unsteady footsteps, slinking out of the room.  
  



	2. Progress

Crimson lead Nate back to a dark, quiet room, and strangely enough even the sounds of the party-goers minds was quiet back here. Everything was blissfully silent.  
  
The room itself was...strangely nice, for it being in this shitty, run down bar. Two comfy looking chairs sat across from eachother at a small, low coffee table, the entire room bathed in a dim red light.  
  
Crimson moved to the far chair, sitting down gracefully and gesturing for Nate to sit across from him with one gloved hand.   
  
Nate huffed, dropping himself much more ungracefully into the chair, scanning the room before his gaze fell to a feather pen in an inkwell on the table.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at that, looking back up at Crimson.  
  
"Why's that here?"  
  
Crimson hummed, waving dismissively.  
  
"Nothing important for tonight." He leaned back instead, crossing one leg to rest his ankle on his other legs knee, tenting his hands in front of him.  
  
He looked...powerful like this, cool eyes and pleasant smile strangely haunting in the red light, the gloves stained with the light.  
  
"So, tell me about yourself."  
  
Nate blinked, arching an eyebrow, running a hand through his own wild, untamed hair.  
  
"I assume you mean my, uh, condition." His voice was dry and cold. "Not something that can be fixed. I'm constantly in pain." He shrugs. "It spreads if anyone touches me."  
  
Crimson tilted his head a little at that.  
  
"Is it magic in nature?"  
  
Nate blinked, surprised.  
  
Slowly, he narrowed his eyes at the man, studying him a little bit closer.  
  
Nate himself wasn't particularly familiar with magic himself beyond what his own aura created, but he supposed magic would make sense for-all of this. The abnormal quiet of the man and this room.  
  
The haunting beauty that refused to leave Nate's mind, constantly drawing his eyes back to the composed silence of Crimson's being.  
  
"Are you?" He asked instead.  
  
Crimson smiled, a warm, alluring thing.  
  
"Yes, you could say that."  
  
Nate felt a tiny bit of desperate, broken hope bloom in his chest.  
  
_"Can you make it go away?"_ He whispered, almost desperate.  
  
Crimson's gentle smile grew.  
  
"I can try. It _is_ magic, then?"

Nate grimaced, crossing his arms over his chest.   
  
"I think so. I don't...really know. But considering it sure as shit doesn't seem natural, I'm guessing so."  
  
Crimson nodded.  
  
"May I see it?"  
  
Nate blinked.   
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Crimson held a gloved hand out as he spoke.  
  
"Your aura. Can you extend it this way?" He said instead.  
  
Nate frowned, puzzled, but allowed the pain that clung to his body to lessen, and slowly, reluctantly, he directed it towards Crimson's hand.  
  
Crimson hummed, hand jerking back for a moment as the aura brushed him, and his expression twitched for a moment before returning to calm warmth, nodding to himself.  
  
"Well, let's try this."  
  
Nate's eyes widened as some strange, hellish red aura swirled like smoke around Crimson, meeting Nate's own aura almost curiously at first, slowly wrapping around it before pulsing up the trail of agony, swirling around Nate in a wave of warmth, both internal and external. Nate went stock-still, eyes following the aura in some mix of curiosity and wariness.  
  
The aura condensed around him steadily, covering him like a blanket, swirling through Nate's own aura, through the very fibers of his being-  
  
And then it stopped.  
  
Everything stopped.  
  
Nate all but _collapsed_ as the perpetual agony _vanished._  
  
He slumped in his chair with a relieved sob. Even in his sane moments, the pain was still there, lingering and resilient.  
  
It was gone entirely.  
  
Crimson let out a low, warm laugh.  
  
"Well, that seemed to work."  
  
Nate just let out a trembling sigh, absolutely melting against his chair.   
  
The _normality_ was so blissfully quiet, painless and quiet.  
  
Nate opened eyes he hadn't even realized he had closed, jumping a little when he realized Crimson was, very abruptly, much closer to him, sitting on the table instead of his chair, smiling pleasantly down at him.  
  
"Better?" He hummed in that smooth voice of his.  
  
Nate laughed weakly, a rough, relieved sound.  
  
"Much."  
  
Crimson smiled a little wider. "And what was your name?"  
  
"Ah-" Well, couldn't really call himself a nightmare anymore, could he? "...Nate. Yours?" Probably not Crimson, but the name was fitting, at least.  
  
"Most call me Phantom." He replied calmly.  
  
Nate cocked his head.  
  
"Weird name." He said bluntly. "What...are you?"  
  
Phantom smiled, that same, warm, pleasant thing, inviting.  
  
"A demon, I believe you call me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it seemed like a dramatic ending for a dramatic man


	3. Demons

Oh.  
  
Okay.  
  
Nate stared at the man blankly for a long moment, lips slowly forming a thin line.  
  
"...so are you going to steal my soul or something?"  
  
Crimson-Phantom, he corrected himself-laughed softly, shaking his head.  
  
"No, no. If I was going to do that, we _would_ need the pen." He gestured to the inkwell.  
  
Nate raised an eyebrow, eyes darting to the feather only for a moment before looking back to the demon, tilting his head a little.  
  
"So you're just...willing to do that for free."  
  
Phantom hummed, leaning back in his seat calmly, folding his hands in front of him.  
  
"If you wished. I simply have a...proposition. You do not need to accept."   
  
Nate raised an eyebrow higher, crossing his arms over his chest-no longer shaking and twitching. That was...nice.  
  
"And if I don't?"  
  
Phantom shrugged.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
Nate cocked his head, puzzled.  
  
That seemed...nicer than the stories he'd heard about Phantom's kind.  
  
"Okay. Shoot."  
  
Phantom smiled, a warm, pleasant thing, but it faded into a grim, somber look, eyes hardening as he spoke, glaring down at the table.  
  
"...My people are amidst a war, as of now. We...are starving. All of us. There's not enough-anything to go around." He looked up at him then, voice softening. "...I..." He sighed. "...I do not need your soul. I will not ask that of you. But I am an Incubus, more specifically."  
  
Nate's eyebrows rose.  
"So you feed off of-"  
  
Phantom nodded.  
  
"...so you're asking to fuck?"   
  
Phantom laughed softly, but it was a hollow sound, nodding again.  
  
"Yes. I am. I can promise you, it will be the best night of your life, if you accept."  
  
Nate tilted his head, considering that.  
  
Help the man who just saved his sanity via getting the fuck of his life? Or decline and leave, letting the demon suffer in whatever strange drought had grasped his people?  
  
"...Sure." Nate said finally.  



End file.
